y all of the life on Earth. This would be the ultimate catastrophe. Better to accept the slavery of the Nazis than to run a chance of drawing the final curtain on mankind!We agreed there could be only one answer. Oppenheimers team must go ahead with their calculations. Unless they came up with a firm and reliable conclusion that our atomic bombs could not explode the air of the sea, these bombs must never be made (Goodchild p.54).The scientists had to solve a problem of pre-detonation. On sub-critical mass had to be joined with another to create a critical mass, which would start the chain reaction and the subsequent detonation. The problem was that if the masses were not joined quickly enough they might go critical too soon and the bomb would blow itself to bits causing relatively little damage to anything else. If the masses joined to quickly the chain reactions of the neutrons would start too soon. Their first proposed method was the gun-method, which was where on sub-critical mass was propelled into the center of the other sub-critical mass. This method, however, was thought to possibly be too slow. Eventually they came up with a solution in which they surrounded the masses with smaller explosive devices. They used shape-charges to get the desired patterns need to reach critical mass at the crucial moment. Eventually the scientist passed all the obstacles and made the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer had thought that it would take four years to produce the bomb but it took only twenty-seven months after the start of the project before the first test was conducted. In May of 1945 Oppenheimer was on the panel of four scientists who discussed the case for the military use of the bomb on Japan. Their opinion was to demonstration of the bombs power would not be enough, but that the bomb would have to be used on a real military target. That was true because it took two bombs to be dropped on targets before Japan finally surrender. The first test ...
